26/09/2014 - 1 Corinthians 14:8'If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?'

Are you afraid to be definite? When you see something clearly are you worried that it would be arrogant to believe that you could be right? When louder and more persuasive voices are raised do you allow your thoughts and convictions to slip quietly away into the background? Is there a place for being definite? Should we not just listen to our children, and our friends, and support them in what they want to do?

A trumpet was made from the horn of an animal and could be heard from a great distance. It was used for several purposes, for example, to assemble an army, to sound the alarm, to proclaim the crowning of a king. It also was used in battle as a warning of an attack. It was used to start the attack, to stop the attack, to pursue the enemy, and to stop the pursuit. Each particular event had its own distinct sound. Imagine the results if the trumpeter played the sound for a coronation when he meant to sound the alarm!

Parent with child – starts off being definite – the child pleads – the parent shifts position – the child wins – the child has learnt the value and power of manipulation – the parent is devalued – the child is insecure.

Family and church are about relationships. Relationships are about attitudes. Be clear as to which attitudes make for good relationships and which ones are destructive. Be definite in upholding right attitudes. Those are self-evident principles for family life but what happens when you put those same vital principles into practice in God’s family life – church? You come up against all those issues that remain unresolved from that child’s developmental years. You meet the insecurity, the attempts at control and manipulation – and it is the church’s task to bring that child to maturity! Where there are open hearts that are submitted to Jesus, wonderful changes take place. Where your clarity threatens to expose unhelpful attitudes in another person then there is a good chance that you will be accused of the very attitudes that the person is unwilling to look at.

I have seen the chaos and confusion that characterises church or family life when no-one is prepared to be definite. I have also seen the security and peace that follows when clear direction is given. There is a price to pay for clarity. Are you prepared to pay it – for the sake of those who want it?

19/09/2014 - 1 John 3:1'How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!'

How many times do you apologise in a day? How often do you feel bad when you don't need to? Are you known as the one who can be taken advantage of because you won't stand up for yourself?

Does all that sit comfortably with being a child of God? If you struggled with self-worth issues before you became a Christian did those issues improve or get worse? Did putting Jesus first, others second and yourself last simply confirm that you never were much good anyway? Being a good Christian then becomes about how far down the scale you can put yourself. That cannot be right if we are 'children of God.'

At the heart of sin is a failure to value ourselves - creatures made in the image of God and therefore able to be in a relationship with God. We devalued ourselves by rebelling against our high calling and thereby lost the sense of who we are. In Christ that is restored. He enables us to walk tall and be confident. We can put him first, and serve others, because we know our true worth. We don't serve to give us value but because we have something of immense value to give away - ourselves and Christ in us.

Knowing who we are means that we will be objective about how we serve. We won't do things so people like us but because those things are genuinely in their best interests. We will stand up for ourselves - not in a brash or aggressive way - but in a quiet way that gives everyone value and teaches value.

Let's take ourselves to task on this. After all, if we think we are rubbish, what does that say about our Heavenly Father?

12/09/2014 - Psalm 34:1'I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.'

Things couldn’t be much worse for David. He was on the run since discovering that Saul was determined to kill him (1 Sam 20:31). He had fled to the Philistines but now believed he was in danger from them so he decided to act as if he was crazy so they would let him get away. It was a close call but he knew God had delivered him. He wasn't out of the woods - he was on the point of becoming a fugitive and an outlaw, living in caves (1 Sam 22:1) and at this point he had no group of followers.

What does he do? He praises God. We could say he was working through his problems, sticking close to God even though it may have felt a dark place to be. He had learned trust as a boy caring for the sheep but now that trust was really being tested in his manhood. How he responded would ultimately affect the future of Israel.

We know we can trust God – but is that faith being tested at the moment? Have issues come in that make the path seem dark and uncertain? We can take David’s remedy. What is he really saying here?

He is deciding on the attitude that he is going to adopt. He is going to continually lift the Lord up and give him his place – whatever is going on in his life. He says he will ‘extol the Lord at all times’ and that his praise will ‘always be on my lips.’ That is a choice. It isn’t an escape. I know a man who would hum little Christian songs when he was needing to apply himself to serious relationship issues in his life and another man who had to play Christian music all the time. For both those men praise was a means of not looking at the real issues. For David, lifting the Lord up was a continual inner attitude of the heart.

On my recent cycling trip with Rachel in France we had a fixed itinerary because we had booked accommodation for each night. Each place we stayed was anything between 30 and 50 miles apart. When we woke in the mornings there was no debate about how far we would cycle – we had already determined that. It had nothing to do with how we felt, what mood we were in or what the weather was like – we had to get to our next place. And we did - because we knew we had to. Once we settle that we are here to bring praise to God then we do so – regardless of what is going on in our lives. Now I don’t mean we do that mindlessly and there will be occasions when the pain is real and the challenge is deep but we can learn to still lift our hearts and worship. I remember hearing of an African Christian many years ago whose village was attacked and he returned to find his little hut burned to the ground with the bodies of his wife and children no more than charred remains. What did he do? He lifted his heart to the God who had given and who had taken away and in those pain-filled moments he knelt and worshipped God.

When we know something is right we do it regardless of what we feel. We recalibrate our emotions to adjust to the truth. There is grave danger in attempting to recalibrate the truth to fit our emotions.

Where to start? Do you pause and worship each day – really worship? If not, set aside even a few minutes, say twice a day, until it becomes part of your attitude. Incidentally, that is true of so many other good things we can build into our lives. Just determine to do it – and stick with it until it becomes part of you.

5/09/2014 - Isaiah 12:3'With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.'

God’s people had been through tough times – times of disobedience and discipline – but now God brings them into great blessing and says that he personally has become their salvation. He expresses that blessing with the picture of a refreshing well full of salvation and his people joyfully drawing up buckets full of salvation.

Salvation – God’s life in us - is there for the taking, but we have to go to the well, send down the bucket in faith, let it fill and draw it up. God doesn’t do this part for us. This is the point at which God’s provision and our action meet together. And this is a continuous process – not just at the start of the Christian life. Every day we need to draw deeply on God’s resources so we walk his way and live his life.

Let’s switch this round and see how this applies to other people. We will think of that well as being filled with God’s truth. People need it desperately, just as people need those wells in a desert land. In that truth is life, salvation and hope.

Perhaps you are part of a church – a kind of custodian of the well. It is your task to advertise the well, encourage others to go to it, give them ‘bucket-lowering’ lessons or whatever is needed, but at the end of the day, they will choose whether or not to drink from the well.

You cannot change anyone. You cannot force people to drink. You cannot stop anyone looking at the well and saying it is rubbish and telling everyone else what they think. They can even tell you that you are rubbish. None of that matters.

What matters is that you make sure the well remains open. Fight for it, protect it, keep it in a good state of repair so the water doesn’t get polluted, keep advertising it because there will always be thirsty people out there who will die without it.